Fluff, context, and how to write clear rules

[Segev]

I'm more bothered by poor font choices than actual text choices.

Ugh. You just reminded me of a megadungeon I purchased a while back called "The Temple of Jing." It has an interesting gimmick: rules for running it in both PF1 and in 5e. It makes it clear that the two stat blocks can be distinguished by a slight font difference in the header and by the header of the PF rules being in blue ink.

The font difference is almost non-existent, and the blue ink they used looks to be the same color as the black ink when printed on the colored paper they chose to use for the "parchment" effect of the book.

I genuinely am amazed that the writer didn't take one look at the first proofs for this and decide on major changes to the inking color, at least, of the "blue" text. Because it is quite impossible to tell them apart under any lighting I have tried, and you have to squint to detect a difference in the fonts. I can't tell, block to block, which is which. And the blocks are in that in-line paragraph-like shorthand, so it takes real effort to parse them, and THEN you can try to guess which edition which block is for!

All of which would've been avoidable if they'd used white paper, or if they'd examined their product and realized they needed a different color ink than whatever "blue" they went with.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I’ll try to clarify. The point of using precise and unambiguous language is that if I go to your table or you cone to my table we are both playing the same game. There is always going to be some friction over house rules and interpretations, but the areas we both concur should be many and the areas we disagree should be few.
My experience of playing games with sloppy and ambiguous rules *cough* GW *cough* is that sometimes the differences are so great as to effectively be playing different games even though the text is the same.

I personally place very little value on inter-table consistency. In fact, in many cases the value I place on it is negative--I positively want variation. If you want such consistency, that's what Organized Play is for, which has its own large set of rules.

At most, having consistency on the basic resolution mechanics (yeah, we're using 1d20 + mods, and here's how we calculate the mods) is enough to be "playing the same game". I do not expect (and even expect the opposite) that building a character outside of the context of a table and trying to import them will work gracefully. I expect every character to be built and played within the context of a single table and post session 0 (where the rules are defined that matter for that table at least at character creation). And I expect that players will affirmatively ask the table[1] about things that are central to their characters before committing to them. And then abide by the table's rulings on the matter. Regardless of what process they used to get there (whether it's text-based or personal aesthetics or anything else).

The rules that work for one table and even one campaign will not work for others. This is not a game like WH40k, where you're expected to play at a bunch of tables in a competitive fashion, where I agree consistency is vital and ambiguity is a strong negative. It's also an open-ended framework designed to be modified and adapted at run-time.

IMO, TTRPG rules are a set of default starting values and don't and shouldn't bind anyone. Unless, of course, they agree to be so bound. And even then, they're bound by the interpretation their table happened to choose, not whatever the internet hive mind declares is "RAW". Because to be very clear, forum RAW is also an interpretation, one that is not simply just "reading the text". In fact, it's one of the worst (textually speaking) interpretations in many cases. It does absolute violence to context, it demands words to only have one meaning, it extrapolates general rules from specific ones (ie exactly back to front), and always takes the maximally player-entitled and DM-abnegating position.

[1] more than just the DM, although the DM has a least a good chunk of say.

[stoutstien]

Ugh. You just reminded me of a megadungeon I purchased a while back called "The Temple of Jing." It has an interesting gimmick: rules for running it in both PF1 and in 5e. It makes it clear that the two stat blocks can be distinguished by a slight font difference in the header and by the header of the PF rules being in blue ink.

The font difference is almost non-existent, and the blue ink they used looks to be the same color as the black ink when printed on the colored paper they chose to use for the "parchment" effect of the book.

I genuinely am amazed that the writer didn't take one look at the first proofs for this and decide on major changes to the inking color, at least, of the "blue" text. Because it is quite impossible to tell them apart under any lighting I have tried, and you have to squint to detect a difference in the fonts. I can't tell, block to block, which is which. And the blocks are in that in-line paragraph-like shorthand, so it takes real effort to parse them, and THEN you can try to guess which edition which block is for!

All of which would've been avoidable if they'd used white paper, or if they'd examined their product and realized they needed a different color ink than whatever "blue" they went with.

Yea it's a important thing that is overlooked. Kevin Crawford makes some questionable choices with format as far as where info is located but at least it's readable and flows well page to page so once you understand the method it's a breeze to find stuff even if the book(s) are ~400 pages in dense info.

Also glossy pages can go die in a fire.

[Pauly]

I personally place very little value on inter-table consistency. In fact, in many cases the value I place on it is negative--I positively want variation. If you want such consistency, that's what Organized Play is for, which has its own large set of rules.

At most, having consistency on the basic resolution mechanics (yeah, we're using 1d20 + mods, and here's how we calculate the mods) is enough to be "playing the same game". I do not expect (and even expect the opposite) that building a character outside of the context of a table and trying to import them will work gracefully. I expect every character to be built and played within the context of a single table and post session 0 (where the rules are defined that matter for that table at least at character creation). And I expect that players will affirmatively ask the table[1] about things that are central to their characters before committing to them. And then abide by the table's rulings on the matter. Regardless of what process they used to get there (whether it's text-based or personal aesthetics or anything else).

The rules that work for one table and even one campaign will not work for others. This is not a game like WH40k, where you're expected to play at a bunch of tables in a competitive fashion, where I agree consistency is vital and ambiguity is a strong negative. It's also an open-ended framework designed to be modified and adapted at run-time.

IMO, TTRPG rules are a set of default starting values and don't and shouldn't bind anyone. Unless, of course, they agree to be so bound. And even then, they're bound by the interpretation their table happened to choose, not whatever the internet hive mind declares is "RAW". Because to be very clear, forum RAW is also an interpretation, one that is not simply just "reading the text". In fact, it's one of the worst (textually speaking) interpretations in many cases. It does absolute violence to context, it demands words to only have one meaning, it extrapolates general rules from specific ones (ie exactly back to front), and always takes the maximally player-entitled and DM-abnegating position.

[1] more than just the DM, although the DM has a least a good chunk of say.

My experience as a player was that I got involved in a lot of pick up games when I started RPGs and I also play TTMWGs. So I value inter table consistency highly, at least as far as how the mechanical effects are applied.

Things like settings/tone/campaigns are malleable, and I don’t expect 100% consistency on those factors. Although with published material consistency helps integrate new players. It also helps players who want to immerse themselves in the setting by reading the source material.
Sometimes making changes to the setting carries wider implications than the person making the change thinks. If we take the green orc/red orc example from earlier in the thread. If the skin color of the orc is purely cosmetic then there probably isn’t too much harm in changing it. However if the setting requires orcs to ge green skinned because they photosynthesize and green is the only color that works and orcs derive mechanical advantages from being green skinned then changing an orc from green to red may require much deeper surgery with lots of flow on effects.
If you’re not worried about inter table consistency then it probably makes no difference, but if it is a concern then you need to think about the consequences before saying the PC can have a red orc.

However in terms of writing a set of rules and/or setting as opposed to playing a set of rules and/or setting inter table consistency should be the goal. People who genuinely try to play the game as written should be able to seamlessly move from table to table.

As I stated earlier with RAW most of the problem is misapplication. In my experience 95% of the “problems” with RAW are solvable by RAW. RAW is a tool and like any tool if it is used incorrectly it leads to poor outcomes. It’s still a good tool. Saying RAW is bad because some people use it badly does not invalidate RAW.

[MoiMagnus]

However in terms of writing a set of rules and/or setting as opposed to playing a set of rules and/or setting inter table consistency should be the goal. People who genuinely try to play the game as written should be able to seamlessly move from table to table.

IMO, it comes down to: are you trying to write a game or a toolbox for a GM to build a game?

And by "toolbox", I don't just mean "here is a bunch of ideas, deal with it". A good toolbox guide the GM so much for their first build that it's practically already a game. But the difference is that you don't expect inter-table consistency at all because the focus is to enable the GM to create a game that match their tastes while helping them not to fall on standard pitfalls. (The reasons why you buy a toolbox is to bit struggle recreating literally everything from scratch)

[Lucas Yew]

Fluff does let you free from the shackles of CRPG game engines' technical limitations, so it has its place.

However in terms of writing a set of rules and/or setting as opposed to playing a set of rules and/or setting inter table consistency should be the goal. People who genuinely try to play the game as written should be able to seamlessly move from table to table.

Strongly agree with this part, however.

[gbaji]

I'm going to second a comment earlier about trying out some technical writing as a test of methodology.

Here's my broad recomendations:

Fluff is fine to a point, but any term that is used should have a firm and well established definition in the games mechanical rules (ie: crunchy bits). If you say "flash", you'd better have defined what it means when a spell has "flash" in its description somewhere in the game rules. If you say "positive energy", you'd better have both "energy" and "positive" (as a type of energy) defined somewhere in your rules. This is no different than also needing rules for what a "1d8" is, or what "hps" are. Heck. If you use the term "heal", you'd better have defined what that means as well. Especially if you have different types of damage which may require different effects (e.g.: regular damage requires healing, acid damage requires regeneration, poison damage requires cure/treat poison, disease damage requires cure/treat disease, etc).

You may still be descriptive within those bounds, but IME, even if you are trying to not be crunchy, your players will just interpret it in some crunchy way anyway, and now you have endless arguments about different secondary effects of doing varioius things in the game you are running. I suppose you could be intentionally going for "interpret this however you want", but again, that really relies on the GM and players being in agreement on those interpretations.

Lack of clear definitions for things may at first make the game appear more flexible, but it'll more likely result in more arguments. Worse, the GM will almost certainly interpret the exact same language in different ways at different times and under different circumstances. Heck. I've done this myself. It always seems reasonable at the time, but when you look back you realize "well crap, I just ruled myself into a big ol circle there, didn't I?".

At the very least, even if the core rules don't define these things, it's a good idea as a GM to come up with some standard meanings/intepretations. And then make them clear to your players. And having said all of this, certainly some tables will be more accepting of flexibility than others. It's always the first rule of GMing to know your table. I've had some folks who are perfectly fine with just kinda winging this stuff, and others where they will immediately say "wait! Back in <date> when we were <doing whatever> you said <something else entirely>, so which is it?".

[Talakeal]

Thanks everyone, there have been some great replies in this thread.

Unfortunately, opinions are so mixed, the thread as a whole is pretty much a wash, some people I agree with completely, and other people I disagree with completely, so I am not sure which, if any, direction I should try and pull my writitng / reading in.


I think the attitude that always puzzles me is the argument that if cosmetic elements of the game cannot be freely changed or ignored by players at their conveniance, then that means every word of the rulebook must by 100% literal, including obvious metephors, generalizations, and figures of speech. I see it quite a bit in discussions, both in person and online, and a few people have even said it in this thread IIRC, and it always feels kind of disingenuous, like playing dumb because you didn't get your way.



So, what really got me thinking of it were two spell descriptions in my last thread. The argument got rather heated, and I would prefer not to rehash it here, but basically they had multiple paragraphs and in one a connection was drawn when it was intended, and in the other a connection was ignored when it was intended. And it feels kind of hypocritical for me to expect players to just know which was appropriate, which is why I was hoping there was some linguistic rule I could use to indicate whether or not two paragraphs / sentences are connected or not.

Spoiler: Cataract

Show

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

So, this spell is intended to work a bit like limited wish or shadow conjuration / evocation from D&D, or to replicate the old horror comic trop where someone's disguise became real. The first bit was meant to describe what the spell does, the second line was meant to describe how it does it. So, for example, it could turn a pile of plastic coins into real gold by replicating the midas' touch spell or turn someone wearing a cat costume into a real cat by duplicating metamorphosis.

However, the reader read it as two separate abilities: 1: It can make illusions real with no limitations. 2: It can duplicate any other spell in the game, which is of course turns an already powerful spell into something completely broken.


Then the second spell:

Spoiler: Regrets Like New Fallen Snow

Show

This extremely powerful spell rewrites the subject's history, allowing them to make a different choice in their past. A character could, for example, change their mind about their career or their spouse, or undo a single terrible mistake. This can even give someone back their innocence; restoring virginity, taking back a criminal history, or breaking an addiction before it started.

While this spell has the potential to alter someone's personal timeline, it lacks the power to change the world. The experiences of people who personally interacted with the subject will be altered accordingly, but as the changes ripple outward from the subject their effects become less noticeable. Any major impact that the subject would have had on history will instead have come about in a different manner, likely by the hand of a different individual who lacked any such regrets.

The new timeline might not have turned out precisely how the chronomancer or their subject anticipated and the limits of this spell, as well as its consequences, are to be negotiated between the chronomancer and the Gamekeeper.

Each casting of this spell can add or remove a single trait of any type. This trait must have been one which the character had the opportunity to gain or lose over the course of their lifetime but did not take. This is one of the few ways that a wizard can alter a character's resource traits. Note that if a character gains the poor flaw or loses the wealthy merit their current finances should be recalculated retroactively.

This is a powerful chronomancer spell that changes one event in the past, essentially an "it's a wonderful life" spell.

My intention was that the storyline elements are to be negotiating between the player and the GM, while the ability to swap out a trait was the "mechanical" effect of the spell. However, the reader took the bit about GM negotiations and applied it to the next paragraph about trait swapping, and thus declared the entire spell was "optional" and not appropriate for a forum discussion.*




And like, I could absolutely decide that it was my bad and the spells are unclear and rewrite them so these specific issues don't come up in the future. Or I could dismiss the reader's opinions as being unreasonable and bad-faith and ignore them, but that doesn't really help the problem for the book as a whole (and, honestly, not just my book but reading and playing a lot of other games whose rules have the same issues) so it would be really nice if there was some concrete guideline on how and when to connect or disconnect separate lines in the same description.



*Honestly, the rules of forum discussion and TO don't really make sense to me, but that's a discussion for another thread.

I'm going to second a comment earlier about trying out some technical writing as a test of methodology.

Here's my broad recomendations:

Fluff is fine to a point, but any term that is used should have a firm and well established definition in the games mechanical rules (ie: crunchy bits). If you say "flash", you'd better have defined what it means when a spell has "flash" in its description somewhere in the game rules. If you say "positive energy", you'd better have both "energy" and "positive" (as a type of energy) defined somewhere in your rules. This is no different than also needing rules for what a "1d8" is, or what "hps" are. Heck. If you use the term "heal", you'd better have defined what that means as well. Especially if you have different types of damage which may require different effects (e.g.: regular damage requires healing, acid damage requires regeneration, poison damage requires cure/treat poison, disease damage requires cure/treat disease, etc).

You may still be descriptive within those bounds, but IME, even if you are trying to not be crunchy, your players will just interpret it in some crunchy way anyway, and now you have endless arguments about different secondary effects of doing varioius things in the game you are running. I suppose you could be intentionally going for "interpret this however you want", but again, that really relies on the GM and players being in agreement on those interpretations.

Lack of clear definitions for things may at first make the game appear more flexible, but it'll more likely result in more arguments. Worse, the GM will almost certainly interpret the exact same language in different ways at different times and under different circumstances. Heck. I've done this myself. It always seems reasonable at the time, but when you look back you realize "well crap, I just ruled myself into a big ol circle there, didn't I?".

At the very least, even if the core rules don't define these things, it's a good idea as a GM to come up with some standard meanings/intepretations. And then make them clear to your players. And having said all of this, certainly some tables will be more accepting of flexibility than others. It's always the first rule of GMing to know your table. I've had some folks who are perfectly fine with just kinda winging this stuff, and others where they will immediately say "wait! Back in <date> when we were <doing whatever> you said <something else entirely>, so which is it?".

Have you ever actually see a rulebook do that?

I sure can't think of any.

This seems to be an absurd over statement imo.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm going to second a comment earlier about trying out some technical writing as a test of methodology.

Here's my broad recomendations:

Fluff is fine to a point, but any term that is used should have a firm and well established definition in the games mechanical rules (ie: crunchy bits). If you say "flash", you'd better have defined what it means when a spell has "flash" in its description somewhere in the game rules. If you say "positive energy", you'd better have both "energy" and "positive" (as a type of energy) defined somewhere in your rules. This is no different than also needing rules for what a "1d8" is, or what "hps" are. Heck. If you use the term "heal", you'd better have defined what that means as well. Especially if you have different types of damage which may require different effects (e.g.: regular damage requires healing, acid damage requires regeneration, poison damage requires cure/treat poison, disease damage requires cure/treat disease, etc).

You may still be descriptive within those bounds, but IME, even if you are trying to not be crunchy, your players will just interpret it in some crunchy way anyway, and now you have endless arguments about different secondary effects of doing varioius things in the game you are running. I suppose you could be intentionally going for "interpret this however you want", but again, that really relies on the GM and players being in agreement on those interpretations.

Lack of clear definitions for things may at first make the game appear more flexible, but it'll more likely result in more arguments. Worse, the GM will almost certainly interpret the exact same language in different ways at different times and under different circumstances. Heck. I've done this myself. It always seems reasonable at the time, but when you look back you realize "well crap, I just ruled myself into a big ol circle there, didn't I?".

At the very least, even if the core rules don't define these things, it's a good idea as a GM to come up with some standard meanings/intepretations. And then make them clear to your players. And having said all of this, certainly some tables will be more accepting of flexibility than others. It's always the first rule of GMing to know your table. I've had some folks who are perfectly fine with just kinda winging this stuff, and others where they will immediately say "wait! Back in <date> when we were <doing whatever> you said <something else entirely>, so which is it?".

My honest opinion is exactly the opposite. Once you set the expectation that the rules are intended to be interpreted as computer code (every term defined and used only in the same way every time), two things happen.
1. First, it becomes monstrously annoying to read and even worse to write. Because you have to continually refer to the glossary (and heaven help you if the glossary isn't kept 100% up to date) because words don't mean what you expect them to mean based on context. And systems become even more tightly self-coupled, which means fragile. And fragile is bad.
2. You inculcate an attitude of legalistic loophole-hunting among the players. And once that happens, no amount of technical writing can save you. People will find loopholes. Motivated reasoning is a big and real thing, and words can't stop that.

I take a very loose approach to rule text and have never had arguments at the table about them. I've had conversations, but they're the whole table deciding "ok, here are the interpretations, which one do we, collectively, like best" or they're "ok DM, how do you want to play this" and then the DM makes a call and everyone goes along.

Honestly, the idea that absolute consistency (either inter-temporally or inter-table) can or even should be maintained is baffling to me. Things that are the same should be the same. But most things aren't. And won't be. You rarely, if ever, get into the exact same situation later on. Circumstances and details matter. And people learn that since we decided X, X didn't work the way we wanted it to, so let's try Y now.

And if the GM and the players aren't aligned on interpretations...no amount of rules can help you. Because rules can't enforce themselves. They're just printed words. Words make really crappy weapons and shields.

[icefractal]

So, what really got me thinking of it were two spell descriptions in my last thread. The argument got rather heated, and I would prefer not to rehash it here, but basically they had multiple paragraphs and in one a connection was drawn when it was intended, and in the other a connection was ignored when it was intended. And it feels kind of hypocritical for me to expect players to just know which was appropriate, which is why I was hoping there was some linguistic rule I could use to indicate whether or not two paragraphs / sentences are connected or not.

Cataract, I read the way you intended, but only because I'm used to a lot of D&D spells doing the same thing - having an initial description that's an exaggeration, followed by what it really does. You can't just say "well, that's how it's mechanically represented", because this isn't an abstraction issue, it's a power-level issue. There's no reason that (in the mechanics of your game), Cataract couldn't turn people who are disguised as gods into real gods - it's mechanically possible. And also out of line for a spell to do, so I'm not saying you're wrong not to allow it. But then don't say that it can do it, even if you clarify "but not really" in the next paragraph.

How phrase it instead? I'd either hedge the language in the first part - which I'm not sure how to do without sounding awkward - or bring the actual effect in earlier. Maybe something like:

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn illusions and other deceptions into reality - it can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from. This can be used to change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Regrets Like New Fallen Snow, I didn't read it at all the way you did. It seemed like it could make essentially any change to one's personal timeline, with the limit of not changing the world significantly. There's nothing to indicate that would be limited to a single trait - in fact "change their mind about their career" directly implies the equivalent of changing class entirely, which would be a lot more difference than one trait. Even in terms of just changing negative traits, a single decision "agree to be the getaway driver" can lead to multiple traits. And for that matter, what if the thing they regret is "trusting the baron last week, which is why we're in prison now"? That's more a change in situation than a change in traits.

So when I got to the last paragraph, it was a bit of whiplash. I read it as "if you're changing traits, you only change one per casting" and/or "yes, this spell is explicitly able to change traits", still subject to the same restrictions as listed above, which would include the GM approval. If that's really all the spell can do, then the first several paragraphs need to promise less.

*Honestly, the rules of forum discussion and TO don't really make sense to me, but that's a discussion for another thread.

IME, those kind of rules are pretty inconsistent anyway, I wouldn't worry much about them.

[NichG]

Spoiler: Cataract

Show

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

Change this text to:

Spoiler

Show

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

The power of Cataract is limited to that which could have been achieved by any other single spell, regardless of school or casting value. Furthermore, there must be a suitable facsimile of the effect to build from.

That doesn't change the degree to which you're using generalizations, metaphors, etc. But it does make your intent more clear. Treat it no differently than someone finding an infinite loop or some unintended interaction.

That's the thing - you can write however you want, but if your goal is to communicate clearly then whether you succeed or fail is a natural consequence of how you choose to write and who is reading it. The issue with writing a certain way isn't that it's a priori 'not allowed to do so in rules text', but just that you might end up failing to communicate successfully. You might also fail to communicate successfully if you write dry text like a lawyer or academic. Communication is the point, not following a fixed format of how to write rules.

Also as this is communication and you are the rules author, you are always automatically correct when it comes to how the game system should be. So you don't have to convince someone to interpret your text the way you think they should or argue that your interpretation is the rules legal one. But at the same time, the fact that they misinterpreted your intent is also something that you can't argue away - they're automatically correct about how they happened to read it. All you can do is decide whether you think that makes it likely someone else would make the same error, and therefore whether or not you want to change your text.

Spoiler: Regrets Like New Fallen Snow

Show

This extremely powerful spell rewrites the subject's history, allowing them to make a different choice in their past. A character could, for example, change their mind about their career or their spouse, or undo a single terrible mistake. This can even give someone back their innocence; restoring virginity, taking back a criminal history, or breaking an addiction before it started.

While this spell has the potential to alter someone's personal timeline, it lacks the power to change the world. The experiences of people who personally interacted with the subject will be altered accordingly, but as the changes ripple outward from the subject their effects become less noticeable. Any major impact that the subject would have had on history will instead have come about in a different manner, likely by the hand of a different individual who lacked any such regrets.

The new timeline might not have turned out precisely how the chronomancer or their subject anticipated and the limits of this spell, as well as its consequences, are to be negotiated between the chronomancer and the Gamekeeper.

Each casting of this spell can add or remove a single trait of any type. This trait must have been one which the character had the opportunity to gain or lose over the course of their lifetime but did not take. This is one of the few ways that a wizard can alter a character's resource traits. Note that if a character gains the poor flaw or loses the wealthy merit their current finances should be recalculated retroactively.

This case on the other hand is more like forum TO posturing culture, and IMO you should just ignore it. The etiquette of TO discussion isn't going to be relevant to how anyone actually plays the game, and trying to say 'the etiquette of TO applies to all forum discussion' is just a power move trying to score points against you on the internet, not anything real that needs to be listened to.

You *could* change the text slightly to say: "For example, each casting of this spell can add or remove a single trait of any type." to indicate more clearly that the add/remove trait function is a special case of the broader 'alter the entire flow of time' thing. To me that reads more clearly that this isn't like 'the only thing the spell is allowed to do mechanically is to add/remove a trait.' It's not that you have to change the text, but for people who read anything non-mechanical as 'just fluff', this would help reinforce that things like 'curing an addiction' or, say, restoring a lost limb are also mechanical things the spell can do.

Note that for this spell, the main ambiguity is going to be the whole weakening of effects not directly impacting the caster bit. If you save someone's life that would have died, by the wording of the spell I would expect them to die soon after from some other cause. But what if you used this to kill someone who had otherwise lived (say, changing the way you voted in a jury trial about their execution)? You can of course leave this ambiguity in place - its fine to say 'well you don't know, you'd have to try and see' - but you shouldn't be surprised when players pick at it either.

[gbaji]

You *could* change the text slightly to say: "For example, each casting of this spell can add or remove a single trait of any type." to indicate more clearly that the add/remove trait function is a special case of the broader 'alter the entire flow of time' thing. To me that reads more clearly that this isn't like 'the only thing the spell is allowed to do mechanically is to add/remove a trait.' It's not that you have to change the text, but for people who read anything non-mechanical as 'just fluff', this would help reinforce that things like 'curing an addiction' or, say, restoring a lost limb are also mechanical things the spell can do.

Wait. Now I'm confused. So the fluff text at the top is suposed to be inteprted as one set of things you can do (but which are negotiable) and the mechanical description at the bottom is just one narrower example? That's not at all how I interprted it either. I assumed that the "change a trait" was the mechanics, and the GM and player negotiate on how that change of trait afffects the historical issues in the players past/timeline.

But yeah. My read of it is that all you can do with it is change one trait. The rest is just describing the timeline ramifications of doing that. But now I'm totally confused.


I also get that I got some criticism for saying everything should be defined. That's just my preference. But here's the thing. If you want to include a fluff description then be consistent with it. The two examples provided had one in which the fluff clearly states an ability "can make an illusion real", but is not supposed to be taken as an actual effect of the power. Only the mechanical stuff in the last paragraph is supposed to be intepreted as "how the spell works". But in the second example, the fluff is describing one thing you can do with the spell, and how that's managed, and the final paragraph is describing yet another (but with a different management methodology).

That's terribly inconsistent. Fluff or don't fluff. Fine. But pick one and stick with it. Either everything at the top is purely desriptive and not to be taken as a mechanical description of the spell effects, or everything is a mechanical description of the spell (and you should expect anyone to interpret it as such). Going back and forth seems like a terrible way to do things.

Maybe pick something in the middle? Have actual consistent headings inside the spell description. Like you might have some math stuff (cost, range, rate, whatever), then a heading "description", with your fluff. Then "spell effects:" with the actual mechanical effects of the spell. That way no one can possibly be confused about which is which. By just streaming a series of paragraphs together, the readers can't know where the fluff ends and the mechanics of the spell begin.

[Talakeal]

That's terribly inconsistent. Fluff or don't fluff. Fine. But pick one and stick with it. Either everything at the top is purely descriptive and not to be taken as a mechanical description of the spell effects, or everything is a mechanical description of the spell (and you should expect anyone to interpret it as such). Going back and forth seems like a terrible way to do things.

Everything is a description of the spell's effects.

The issue isn't really about "fluff" vs. "crunch" its about separating where one idea ends and about whether one thing connects to the preceeding section or is a wholly separate mechanic.

The first part is what it does (turns an illusion real) the second part is how it does it (targeting a facsimile and then replicating the effects of any other spell).

It's no different than:

"Guns kill people. They do this by launching a small projectile after the trigger is pulled." Or "Firemen save lives. They do this by carrying people out of burning buildings." or "Birds fly. They do this by flapping their wings and creating lift."

Maybe pick something in the middle? Have actual consistent headings inside the spell description. Like you might have some math stuff (cost, range, rate, whatever), then a heading "description", with your fluff. Then "spell effects:" with the actual mechanical effects of the spell. That way no one can possibly be confused about which is which. By just streaming a series of paragraphs together, the readers can't know where the fluff ends and the mechanics of the spell begin.

The problem with that is

1: Not all spells have any "fluff"
2: Not all spells have any "mechanics"
and (this big one) 3: People will then get the impression that the description is irrelevant and can be ignored or changed or can't have any mechanical effects.


For example, color. Color is a classic "descriptive" element, but it is absolutely possible to have color matter mechanically, for example a circle of protection that stops things of a certain color from passing through or an alarm spell that goes off when something of a particular color approaches, or a baneful weapon that is strong against people with certain hair, skin, or eye colors.

But that's just an example, I can't imagine any sort of descriptive element that couldn't have mechanical implications under the right circumstances in a simulationist RPG.


As an example, in the Lord of the Rings game they actually do this, but it still creates a lot of confusion, honestly more than not having it imo.

For example:

Flame Burst:
Description: The caster summons forth a jet of searing flame which jumps from their outstretched palm in an attempt to slay their foe.
Mechanics: This power targets one enemy model within range. The target immediately suffers a strength 6 hit.

and then:

Flame of Udun:
Description: The balrog is wreathed in flames and able to manifest weapons of sorcerous fire.
Mechanics: The balrog is immune to any fire-based attacks or special rules such as a dragon's fire or set ablaze.


So is the balrog immune to flame burst? The description would seem to clearly indicate yes. The mechanics seem to clearly indicate no. What is the intent? Probably yes? But who can say? Someone is going to feel bad either way.

This case on the other hand is more like forum TO posturing culture, and IMO you should just ignore it. The etiquette of TO discussion isn't going to be relevant to how anyone actually plays the game, and trying to say 'the etiquette of TO applies to all forum discussion' is just a power move trying to score points against you on the internet, not anything real that needs to be listened to.

Yeah, going back over it that conversation was a heck of a lot more hostile than I realized at the time and I should probably ignore most of it.

[Telok]

The first part is what it does (turns an illusion real) the second part is how it does it (targeting a facsimile and then replicating the effects of any other spell).

It's no different than:

"Guns kill people. They do this by launching a small projectile after the trigger is pulled." Or "Firemen save lives. They do this by carrying people out of burning buildings." or "Birds fly. They do this by flapping their wings and creating lift."

Hmm. Comparing....

Cataract

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

So the Cataract spell lacks a "it does this by" phrase like the examples have. Maybe just using more connecting or conditioning phrases? Perhaps change "facsimile" to "illusionary facsimile"?

The other thing I noticed is this, like several other things, mention collaboration between the GM and the player. Maybe choose an icon of some sort to put in front of the spell name or in the tags that indicates this is one of a set of things the player has to talk over with the GM before they try to use it.

[gbaji]

Cataract
The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

Is there another spell, in some other school, that turns illusions into real objects? Or another spell that turns a person into their disquise?

If not, then the second part is *not* a "here's how it does this" follow on to the first part. They are two completely different things.

I get where you are going with the description. The illusionist creates an illusion of an existing spell effect, creating the effect. But from a semantic point of view, this is not at all "what the spell does" and "how it does it". The second part is the entirety of "what the spell does" (it allows the caster to duplicate any other spell). Period. "how it does it" is "You cast the Cataract spell" (that's the mechanics involved, right?).

I would completely change the first part to something like this:

Cataract
The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Via use of this spell, the illusionist can create a false version of any other spell that is indistiguishable from the real thing

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

I just think that going off about making illusions into real objects, and people becoming their disguises, and bringing fantasies to life, while lovely language, leads one away from the really significant restriction of "as long as the same effect can be caused by some other spell that exists in the game".

However, the reader read it as two separate abilities: 1: It can make illusions real with no limitations.

Except that's literally what the first setence says the spell does: "changes other illusions into real objects". It's a pretty reasonable read of that description that if I create an illusion of something, I can then cast Cataract and make that illusion "real". The only suggested restriction here is that it has to be a "real object", maybe.

And yes. I get that this is fluff description. Great. I can accept that. But, like I said above, here's where the problem lies:

Regrets Like New Fallen Snow
This extremely powerful spell rewrites the subject's history, allowing them to make a different choice in their past. A character could, for example, change their mind about their career or their spouse, or undo a single terrible mistake. This can even give someone back their innocence; restoring virginity, taking back a criminal history, or breaking an addiction before it started.

While this spell has the potential to alter someone's personal timeline, it lacks the power to change the world. The experiences of people who personally interacted with the subject will be altered accordingly, but as the changes ripple outward from the subject their effects become less noticeable. Any major impact that the subject would have had on history will instead have come about in a different manner, likely by the hand of a different individual who lacked any such regrets.

The new timeline might not have turned out precisely how the chronomancer or their subject anticipated and the limits of this spell, as well as its consequences, are to be negotiated between the chronomancer and the Gamekeeper.

Each casting of this spell can add or remove a single trait of any type. This trait must have been one which the character had the opportunity to gain or lose over the course of their lifetime but did not take. This is one of the few ways that a wizard can alter a character's resource traits. Note that if a character gains the poor flaw or loses the wealthy merit their current finances should be recalculated retroactively.

If I'm to take the example from the first spell (and your insisted correct interpretation), then I should assume that the first part of this spell is also "fluff description" as well. So the only thing the spell actually does is in the last paragraph: "The spell can add or remove a single trait of any type".

If that's true, then we're great. Consistency maintained. But if the second spell does allow the caster to change past events and choices beyond just changing traits, then you have a problem with the structure of your spell descriptions. Because I have no innate way to know that the description at the top of the first spell is restricted to just those things that match the statement in the final paragraph, but in the second spell it is not (in this case, you are describing two separate effects). How am I to know this?

Unless that's not the interpretation. You didn't actually clarify what I was asking about, so let me make it even more clear:

In the spell "Regrets Like New Fallen Snow", can the caster only change their traits, or can they change other historical choices?

[Talakeal]

Is there another spell, in some other school, that turns illusions into real objects? Or another spell that turns a person into their disquise?

If not, then the second part is *not* a "here's how it does this" follow on to the first part. They are two completely different things.

I get where you are going with the description. The illusionist creates an illusion of an existing spell effect, creating the effect. But from a semantic point of view, this is not at all "what the spell does" and "how it does it". The second part is the entirety of "what the spell does" (it allows the caster to duplicate any other spell). Period. "how it does it" is "You cast the Cataract spell" (that's the mechanics involved, right?).

I would completely change the first part to something like this:



I just think that going off about making illusions into real objects, and people becoming their disguises, and bringing fantasies to life, while lovely language, leads one away from the really significant restriction of "as long as the same effect can be caused by some other spell that exists in the game".




Except that's literally what the first sentence says the spell does: "changes other illusions into real objects". It's a pretty reasonable read of that description that if I create an illusion of something, I can then cast Cataract and make that illusion "real". The only suggested restriction here is that it has to be a "real object", maybe.

And yes. I get that this is fluff description. Great. I can accept that. But, like I said above, here's where the problem lies:




If I'm to take the example from the first spell (and your insisted correct interpretation), then I should assume that the first part of this spell is also "fluff description" as well. So the only thing the spell actually does is in the last paragraph: "The spell can add or remove a single trait of any type".

If that's true, then we're great. Consistency maintained. But if the second spell does allow the caster to change past events and choices beyond just changing traits, then you have a problem with the structure of your spell descriptions. Because I have no innate way to know that the description at the top of the first spell is restricted to just those things that match the statement in the final paragraph, but in the second spell it is not (in this case, you are describing two separate effects). How am I to know this?

Unless that's not the interpretation. You didn't actually clarify what I was asking about, so let me make it even more clear:

In the spell "Regrets Like New Fallen Snow", can the caster only change their traits, or can they change other historical choices?

This post is really hard to format with all the nested quotes, so try and bear with me hear if I don't go line by line.

Your suggested change to Cataract is, IMO, far more confusing, as it doesn't actually do anything to define "facsimile" or even give any guidance to what it might mean. The limit of cataract is that you need an illusion to build on, not that the other spells don't exist.


Neither spell has "fluff". They have a description of what the spell does. Cataract turns an illusion real, period. That is what the spell does, nothing more, nothing less. It then goes on to say that the mechanics of doing so will follow another spell.

Regrets like new fallen snow changes one decision made in the characters history and readjusts their personal timeline accordingly. That is what does. It then goes on to say that one of the potential outcomes of this is changing a character's traits, and then describes how to do it.



As for having a problem with how I write my spells, that is exactly my point. I fully agree that there should be some clear way to tell if ideas are written. But I don't think this is a problem unique to my spells; if I open up any of the game books on my shelf I can find the same thing.

E.g. I just opened up the D&D players handbook to a random page and the first power I saw was "animate objects" whose first sentence reads only "Objects come to life at your command." The spell then goes on to describe rules for creating and commanding animated objects, but if read in the same style as Cataract, I could easily insist that the spell can resurrect dead characters without the need for diamonds or clerics by causing corpses to spring to life at my command.

Spoiler

Show

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

The power of Cataract is limited to that which could have been achieved by any other single spell, regardless of school or casting value. Furthermore, there must be a suitable facsimile of the effect to build from.

So this looks good, but doesn't actually fix the exploit. The exploit was that it replicated the effects of the spell, but without going through any of the costs or processes associated with casting said spell.

To use the resurrection analogy above; the problem is not that cataract can raise the dead, its that it can do it without diamonds or level loss / stat penalty.

[Jakinbandw]

Lately, I've been contemplating the purpose of fluff in my writing. I've come to the realization that it's primarily about conveying intent to the players. It serves as a way of saying, "This is what this ability is meant to be," followed by an explanation of how the mechanics handle that ability. From a balance standpoint, fluff may not hold much significance, since the same mechanic can effectively handle various types of fluff. However, looking at it from a different perspective, the fluff becomes crucial as it represents the fictional aspect we aim to simulate through mechanics. Without the fluff, the ability itself loses its essence. Mechanics are not created out of nothing; they exist solely to enable the simulation of the fluff, always playing a secondary role and requiring the context of the designer's intentions. In a crunchy game, both elements are essential: fluff to convey the vision and mechanics to accurately represent that vision.

[Kane0]

Some newer systems actually put the first sentence in italics, which makes the initial reading clearer, but it makes the issues about how the rules interact with other things even worse.

Citation needed.

In my experience the italics to dilineate between what is mutable fluff and what is game mechanic is quite a good practice.

If what you put in the fluff has a consistent effect on gameplay, it isnt fluff. Well unless youre playing really narrative-heavy or any other circumstance where DM takes priority over dev.

[Talakeal]

Citation needed.

In my experience the italics to dilineate between what is mutable fluff and what is game mechanic is quite a good practice.

If what you put in the fluff has a consistent effect on gameplay, it isnt fluff. Well unless youre playing really narrative-heavy or any other circumstance where DM takes priority over dev.

Citation that some games do this or an example of it making things worse?


I already posted an example:

Spoiler: Fire in Lord of the Rings

Show

As an example, in the Lord of the Rings game they actually do this, but it still creates a lot of confusion, honestly more than not having it imo.

For example:

Flame Burst:
Description: The caster summons forth a jet of searing flame which jumps from their outstretched palm in an attempt to slay their foe.
Mechanics: This power targets one enemy model within range. The target immediately suffers a strength 6 hit.

and then:

Flame of Udun:
Description: The balrog is wreathed in flames and able to manifest weapons of sorcerous fire.
Mechanics: The balrog is immune to any fire-based attacks or special rules such as a dragon's fire or set ablaze.


So is the balrog immune to flame burst? The description would seem to clearly indicate yes. The mechanics seem to clearly indicate no. What is the intent? Probably yes? But who can say? Someone is going to feel bad either way.

The big issue is future proofing. You see this a lot in Magic, where there will be older cards that clearly belong to a creature type, but don't have the tag because the tag hadn't been relevant yet.

Like, to go back to lord of the rings, most species have a key word, but "horse" isn't one of them, despite there being many horses in the game. Were they to add a character one day who say, caused terror to all horses or received +1 to wound horses, it wouldn't apply to any of the dozens of horse models already in existence until errata is introduced.

This is even worse in an RPG where characters can create custom magic items and spell effects that trigger off of "cosmetic" details.

[Segev]

Yeah, for cataract, I would add, "It does these things by..." to the part that's the actual mechanics. You want the "fluff" there to be, the way it is in 5e, actually part of the rules; it really is what the spell does. But you want to specify that the mechanism is limited to mimicking other spells while using a pre-existing illusion to create the illusion of the effect, first.

This is a little awkward in most systems I know of, by the by, since the illusion would take up your action to create/manipulate, and thus you can't imitate combat spells very well. But it should work fine for longer-term effects.

That said, you may want to couch the earlier part in some qualifying words, suggesting that only some things can be made real, but not others. "If other magic can do it, then this spell can turn an illusion of it to reality," or something like that.


The other one, I would've read it as allowing you to pick one trait to change, but then you have to discuss with the DM what the actual impact of doing so is. So you can definitely make it so that Bob married Susan, rather than remaining a bachelor all his life, but it's up to the DM - in discussion with you, but ultimately his choice - whether they stayed married, got divorced, either of them died early, whether they had kids, how many kids of what sex, when they had kids and how old those kids are now, whether marrying Susan helped him become more successful (perhaps due to greater motivation) or caused Bob to be poverty-stricken his whole life due to the extra mouths to feed, etc. etc. etc.

[NichG]

.
So this looks good, but doesn't actually fix the exploit. The exploit was that it replicated the effects of the spell, but without going through any of the costs or processes associated with casting said spell.

To use the resurrection analogy above; the problem is not that cataract can raise the dead, its that it can do it without diamonds or level loss / stat penalty.

Okay so this is just entirely missing from the original by my reading (perhaps you're expecting too much of the word 'mimic'). So you just need to add a sentence 'any costs or processes associated with the corresponding spell being emulated are added to the casting of Cataract'

Honestly though, this starts to get sort of clunky at the fictional level, because in some sense it says that someone casting Cataract to effect a resurrection will somehow know what a resurrection would require, even if they don't actually know how to cast resurrection. The implication is just kind of weird if you don't spell things out.

It would be less weird if sacrifice of components/etc had some universally fungible nature, so maybe you don't use diamonds but you provide the same equivalent 'charge' in a form relevant to Cataract.

[Kane0]

Citation that some games do this or an example of it making things worse?

I already posted an example:

Spoiler: Fire in Lord of the Rings

Show

As an example, in the Lord of the Rings game they actually do this, but it still creates a lot of confusion, honestly more than not having it imo.

For example:

Flame Burst:
Description: The caster summons forth a jet of searing flame which jumps from their outstretched palm in an attempt to slay their foe.
Mechanics: This power targets one enemy model within range. The target immediately suffers a strength 6 hit.

and then:

Flame of Udun:
Description: The balrog is wreathed in flames and able to manifest weapons of sorcerous fire.
Mechanics: The balrog is immune to any fire-based attacks or special rules such as a dragon's fire or set ablaze.

So is the balrog immune to flame burst? The description would seem to clearly indicate yes. The mechanics seem to clearly indicate no. What is the intent? Probably yes? But who can say? Someone is going to feel bad either way.

The big issue is future proofing. You see this a lot in Magic, where there will be older cards that clearly belong to a creature type, but don't have the tag because the tag hadn't been relevant yet.

Like, to go back to lord of the rings, most species have a key word, but "horse" isn't one of them, despite there being many horses in the game. Were they to add a character one day who say, caused terror to all horses or received +1 to wound horses, it wouldn't apply to any of the dozens of horse models already in existence until errata is introduced.

This is even worse in an RPG where characters can create custom magic items and spell effects that trigger off of "cosmetic" details.

Going by the example (I have no experience in the system), it appears to be a failing on the mechanics end, not the fluff. The attack is fire; Balrogs are immune to fire; but the mechanics do not distinguish 'fire' as a variety of damage. There is a hidden or unwritten mechanic that the fluff makes apparent by its omission elsewhere.

That happened in Pokemon too, with new types and pre-evolutions being added in later generations leading to some wonkiness as time has progressed. In D&D (at least here) we call it the air-breathing mermaid. You said it yourself, that's what errata is for. If you introduce a new mechanic it's your job to make sure it's implemented properly, and that includes back-porting into applicable portions of the game that already exist. 3rd ed D&D had ability and spell tags, 5e does not. If they were to be implemented in a future instalment you would expect that any other preceding but still current material be adjusted to facilitate.

[Satinavian]

"Cure light wounds channels a flash of positive energy which wipes away the subject's injuries. The subject heals 1d8 points of damage."

Here i would not read the first sentence as fluff an the second as crunch. Nor does the first sentence talks about "all injuries". Instead, in a system where injuries are modeled as damage, the second sentence quantifies the amount. However, the "flash" and the "positive energy" in the first sentence are crunch. You can't hide it easily in darkness, you can use it do (badly) replace a light source, positive energy is a thing in the game that does interact with many other elements. It is a rule keyword. None of this is fluff, regardless the overly poetic formulation.

And then there is the broader question of what is fluff?

Is it setting details?
Is it cosmetic descriptions?
Is it something else?

Fluff does not have any mechanical impact and is purely for immersion. It is there to bridge the abstract rules and everyone's imagination.


Now this easy to distinguish for a boardgame as those usually operate on a whitelist regarding game actions. But for RPGs that is difficult. What kind of stuff is never mechanically relevant ?

A good idea for writing pure fluff is qualifiers : often, rarely, usually, commonly thought as etc. That makes it pretty clear it can't be invoked/treated as rule.

Another good idea is to avoid mechanical key words when writing fluff.

And likewise, many people assume it is safe to freely ignore or change what they consider fluff. But is that ok?

That is a very different question and i would say "no". Just because something is fluff does not mean it is arbitrary or irrelevant or can be changed at a whim. Fluff has an important function in the game. It should not surprise that in a game about shared imagination and immersion an element that is all about shared imagination and immersion should be handled with proper care.

And of course, then we get to text that isn't really fluff or crunch, and isn't technically true either, but it still a normal part of speech.

For example:
Metaphors "Drizz't is a killing machine."
Generalizations "Dwarves are craftsmen who live in the mountains."
Poetic exaggerations "Nobody can deny that Smaug is the most terrifying beast who ever lived."
Figures of speech "That old wizard sure has a bee in his bonnet!"
Homonyms "If you play baseball with the vampires, make sure you don't get hit by a bat!"
Unclear wording "That old druid sure is strong as a bear."
In character deception "The village blacksmith is a kindly old elf woman." when in truth she is a wicked shapeshifting devil only pretending to be a kindly old elf.

Aside from possibly generalizations and homonyms none of this has any place in a rulebook. And the first would benefit from qualifiers and the last are better avoided if there is any chance of misunderstanding. But yes, people writing rules in English have it tough. There are other, way more precise languages out there.



Now to this Cataract thing.

Spoiler: Cataract

Show

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality; it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from.

So, this spell is intended to work a bit like limited wish or shadow conjuration / evocation from D&D, or to replicate the old horror comic trop where someone's disguise became real. The first bit was meant to describe what the spell does, the second line was meant to describe how it does it. So, for example, it could turn a pile of plastic coins into real gold by replicating the midas' touch spell or turn someone wearing a cat costume into a real cat by duplicating metamorphosis.

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality - Introduction. Clarfied later.

it can change other illusion spells into real objects, shift a being's identity to match a disguise or an assumed role, or otherwise bring fantasies to life. - That is three different, distinct uses here. Which means the second part works on nonmagical disguises as well, and with "assumed roll" even without a proper disguise at all as long as you portray someone. The last part about bringing fantasies to life is even more open ended. As written, it basically allows you to make everything you can imagine. Which is obviously broken in countless ways but i have seen similar illusion rules that really meant it way too often, i would on a normal reading assume that really is intentional. The word "otherwise" makes it very clear again that this is different and distinct from the real illusion spell thing.

Cataract can mimic any other spell, regardless of school or casting value, so long as it has a suitable facsimile to build from. - At first glance that looks like a clarification for the "make illusion spells into real object". But wait. No, making illusion spells real and mimic real spells are completely different. This is obviously a fourth use of the spell cataract. It certainly can overlap with the first use in that the illusion spell to be made real counts as the facsimile if at the same time the spell to be mimiced creates an object. But the overlap of those uses are not large. The fourth use allows for facsimiles that are e.g. nonmagical and spells that don't create objects, the first use allows for objects not created by spells.


So yes, the spell as written does not do at all what you intended. It is a mess. Try the following :

The ultimate refinement of the illusionist's trade is to create something so perfect that the universe itself cannot tell that it is fiction. Cataract is used to turn deceptions into reality. The Cataract spell allows to mimic any other spell regardless of school as long as a suitable facsimile is present. An illusion of the spell effect to be mimiced counts as suitable facsimile. At the gamekeepers discretion a disguise or counterfeit or something similar might as well.


That seems to be doing what you actually intended. And is even shorter. You could even lose the first two sentences but those seem to be your style.

Now for balancing issues i would add something like

If the casting value or any component of the cost of the spell to be mimiced is greater than for Cataract, the casting value and cost to cast Cataract is increased to match.

Or something similar matching your system. I have not read how spellcasting really works there. Still ridiculously powerful.

[stoutstien]

If you need a simple example of wonky mechanics that occur when rules get in the way of themselves just look at burning hands.

Both the name and description would indicate you need both hands free to cast this spell but the actual letter of the rules could be read to get the point where you don't even need a single free hand via war caster, casting it with an item/scroll, or potentially removing the somatic components.

This gets cleared up 100% if yoy just read it in it totality rather than trying to read it as rules.

[Jakinbandw]

If you need a simple example of wonky mechanics that occur when rules get in the way of themselves just look at burning hands.

Both the name and description would indicate you need both hands free to cast this spell but the actual letter of the rules could be read to get the point where you don't even need a single free hand via war caster, casting it with an item/scroll, or potentially removing the somatic components.

This gets cleared up 100% if yoy just read it in it totality rather than trying to read it as rules.

See this is interesting, as it ignores the fluff behind war caster where it calls out that you are not casting the spells using the standard methods. Burning hands is telling you the standard method for casting the spell, while war caster says you have trained to use it in ways other than the standard method.

So I'm honestly not seeing how this is particularly wonky. The fluff and the mechanics match up exactly as I would expect them to.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This gets cleared up 100% if yoy just read it in it totality rather than trying to read it as rules.

Reading things in the proper context absolutely fixes a majority of the honest problems here. But online discussions are seemingly allergic to context--they want to parse rules (and other peoples' statements!) down to the minimum unit, usually to further whatever point the poster is trying to make. It's not actual bad faith, because a lot of it is done without intention to deceive and just out of a desire to limit the scope. But it is bad argument and bad interpretation. Combine this with the (natural, but wrong) tendency to try to derive general rules from specific rules[1], and it's a recipe for aggressive mutual misunderstanding.

The basic unit of context for a "rules entry" is the entire rules entry, plus whatever general rules apply (including those being overridden by the specific rules entry), plus whatever other specific rules the individual entry says it affects. You need the entire hierarchy in mind at once to parse any of it successfully. Trying to read sentences (or worse, clauses) as independent things is not even wrong--it's gibberish. It's just not a way you can read these things.

Of course, this means that deeply nested hierarchies and tightly-coupled systems (especially with global parameters, which is what you get if you use keywords everywhere) are hard to deal with properly. Deep hierarchies (X overrides Y which overrides Z which overrides...) mean your context stack is deeper. Tight coupling means that an ability at a deep (ie specific) level can make changes which ripple out across the entire system, so you effectively have to keep the entire system in mind with all of its (explosively increasing) interactions.

[1] Specific rules cannot set general rules. Even by exception. Realizing this means that the Air-Breathing Mermaid issue goes away (almost) entirely. Individual specific entries do not help you reason about different specific entries unless they specifically reference those other entries.

[stoutstien]

See this is interesting, as it ignores the fluff behind war caster where it calls out that you are not casting the spells using the standard methods. Burning hands is telling you the standard method for casting the spell, while war caster says you have trained to use it in ways other than the standard method.

So I'm honestly not seeing how this is particularly wonky. The fluff and the mechanics match up exactly as I would expect them to.

I agree.

Warcaster only addresses holding weapons and/or shields in regards to somatic components. The text regarding how one casts burning hands are the somatic portion.


The issue arises when you read either in isolation as 'rules' and you suddenly cast burning hands while hanging from a rope with one hand as long as the other hand has a weapon or shield in it.

[Pex]

For me, fluff = flavor text = not rules. They are descriptive words to inspire imagination and help the player visualize what is happening. It is not a cudgel to enforce an outcome by player or DM to play gotcha. Players should not use it to get away with something they know it doesn't work that way nor by the DM to make something bad happen to a PC or deny an ability the PC is entitled to but the DM finds a threat to his power. It can be used as is or changed to suit the desire of the game. My warforged battlemaster activates a force field. All I'm doing is casting Shield spell. It follows all rules regarding casting a spell and how that interacts with the rules, but I don't say I'm casting Shield. I'm activating a force field. Out of spell slots = out of energy need to recharge. In an anti-magic field = something is jamming my signals.

[gbaji]

Regrets like new fallen snow changes one decision made in the characters history and readjusts their personal timeline accordingly. That is what does. It then goes on to say that one of the potential outcomes of this is changing a character's traits, and then describes how to do it.

Ok. But that's the problem. In the spell Cataract, you are insisting that the second part must be interpreted as a limitation to the first part (you can make things real, but only in ways that duplicate existing spell effects). But in this spell you are saying that the second part is merely an example of how the first part could be used (you can change anything in your past, and modifying traits is just one of the things you could modify).

But there is no way for a reader to guess this from the spell descriptions themselves.

If you intend something to be a restriction, then you use language like "However, the caster may only <spell effect> in ways that <restriction>" (eg: The caster may only make illusions real in ways that duplicate an existing spell effect).

If you intend something to be an example, then you use language like "One way this could be used is to retroactively change the traits a character possesses, but any choice made in the past could be changed, all subject to GM approval".

So this looks good, but doesn't actually fix the exploit. The exploit was that it replicated the effects of the spell, but without going through any of the costs or processes associated with casting said spell.

That's a flaw in the initial description though, since it doesn't say that there either.

[KorvinStarmast]

Thanks everyone, there have been some great replies in this thread.

Unfortunately, opinions are so mixed, the thread as a whole is pretty much a wash, some people I agree with completely, and other people I disagree with completely, so I am not sure which, if any, direction I should try and pull my writitng / reading in.

Follow your muse, and since it's a game, Playtest! Playtest! Playtest!
Confining your play test to your dysfunctional table is a losing strategy.

If you want to grasp how many play testers you need, check out Blades in the Dark. They give a nod to all of their play testers.
In small font, the hundreds of play testers are each acknowledged by name in the published book.

FWIW, I don't feel that you wanted anything more than to start an argument: it's the old "pattern of behavior" thing.

What you need to do if you are sincere is to publish a draft, get it into the hands of a few Hundred play testers, and then actively solicit their feedback. That's how you will find out how well your rule set will be received.

I have spent some time of my life creating, updating, and revising:
Flight Training Manuals
Aircraft Operations Manuals
Aircraft Maintenance Manuals

You always send out a draft and find out, via feedback, what the users identify as the "WTF" sections of the proposed manual or revision.

There is NO Easy Button.